AXWAY - A SYSTEM TO OBTAIN VEHICLE AXLE WEIGHTS

Vehicle axle weight spectra are essential for transport studies, road pavement and bridge design but they are very difficult to obtain. Axway is a system which measures vehicle axle weights with the vehicles travelling at highway speeds using bridges as large dynamic scales. It uses an Australian Road Research Board (ARRB) data acquisition system to measure and record the vehicle's speed and axle spacing and the bridge's strain response to the vehicle. These data are then transferred to a mainframe computer for post processing to determine the axle weights. The basic principle used in the post processing is that a vehicle in crossing a bridge causes a strain influence line to develop which is a good measure of that vehicle's gross weight and individual axle or group weights. Axway is a low cost system which enables vehicle axle weights to be collected in an unbiased manner at a rate of up to several hundred vehicles an hour in a suitable location. The number of the covering abstract for the conference is IRRD No. 393385. See also TRIS No. 393407. (Author/TRRL)